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St. Paul is one of the most important figures in the early church. He was born a
Roman citizen. It is important to remember that not all the inhabitants of the Roman
empire were Roman citizens. Roman citizens had certain important rights that non-
citizens did not have. Roman citizenship could be granted by the government, it could
be bought, or it could be inherited. St. Paul was born a citizen in the city of Tarsus. He
was also known as Saul. Many Jews had two names, a Hebrew one (Saul) and a
Greco-Roman name (Paul). Tarsus was a fairly large city, an important trading center.
It was a very diverse city so young Paul had contact with people of different religions,
nationalities and languages.
As a young man St. Paul was sent to Jerusalem to study with the famous rabbi
Gamaliel, and he became a rabbi. St. Paul was a Pharisee. As he says in Acts 23:6,
“….”Brethren, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees; with respect to the hope and theresurrection of the dead I am on trial.”
The Pharisees were a sect within Judaism. They tried to live strictly according to
the Jewish law.
At first St. Paul was a persecutor of Christians. He first appears in the Bible in the
Book of Acts. He is present when St. Stephen was stoned to death.“Then they cast him out of the city and stoned him; and the witnesses laid down theirgarments at the feet of a young man named Saul. “(Acts 7:58)
When he gets older he becomes a violent persecutor of Christians.“But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to thehigh priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he foundany belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” Acts9:1-2)
However, as he is riding to Damascus the risen Christ appears to him:

“Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven
flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said,”I am
Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what
you are to do.” (Acts 9:3-6)
It is important to understand that after Jesus appeared to Paul, he did not go on to form
his own idiosyncratic religion. Rather he went to a Christian, Ananias, who taught him
the basics of Christianity and baptized him. Shortly thereafter, St. Paul began to preach
the Gospels to the Jews. However, as the majority of the Jews would not accept Jesus.
St. Paul directed his preaching to the Gentiles (non-Jews).“But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with jealousy, and contradictedwhat was spoken by Paul, and reviled him. And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly,saying, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since youthrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to theGentiles.” (Acts 13:45-46)
One of the more important aspects of Paul’s Christianity was his attitude to the
Jewish law. As stated earlier, St. Paul was a Pharisee, and the most important aspect of
being a Pharisee was the strict observance of the Law. St. Paul, before he became a
Christian, tried very hard to observe the Law, but always felt he wasn’t succeeding. He
was always frustrated. So, when he became a Christian he realized that one is not save
by observing the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. St. Paul’s letter to the Roans and
Galatians deal with this issue.
This attitude towards the Law is rooted in Jesus’ attitude. We remember that
many times He was accused of breaking the Law. For example, of violating the law
against working on the Sabbath or the food laws. As Christ said“The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27)

Also, we have to remember the controversy over the Law and gentile believers.
In other words, when the Apostles began to preach to the Gentiles, some of the Jewish
Christians thought that the Gentiles who converted to Christianity also had to observe
the Jewish Law, that to become Christian one had to become a Jew first. This
controversy roiled the early church. If a convert to Christianity had to become Jewish
too, then Christianity would simply have been a Jewish sect. However, the apostles met
in Jerusalem in the 1st church council, decided that gentile converts did not have to
observe the Law.“Now therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of thedisciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe thatwe shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.” Therefore, myjudgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but shouldwrite to them to abstain from the pollutions of idols and from unchastity and from what isstrangled and from blood.” (Acts 15:10-11, 19-20)
Traditionally, St. Paul is considered to be author of thirteen letters. Some
scholars deny the direct Pauline authorship of some of the works, but St. Paul’s
teaching is seen in all. Also, we should mention that about half of the Book of Acts is
about St. Paul, his conversion, his missionary journeys, the persecution he suffered and
finally his arrest and journey to Rome for trial.

One thing that differentiates the Fourth Gospel from the other three is that in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Christ speaks in short, pithy sayings such as “love your neighbor”, “turn the other cheek” and so on. He also speaks in parables such as the “Good Samaritan” and “the Prodigal Son”.

But we see very little of this in St. John’s Gospel. In this Gospel Christ delivers long theological speeches. Because of this some critics say that St. John’s Gospel is not historically accurate. However, there are some things to consider. In the first three (synoptic) Gospels, Christ is preaching for the most part, in Galilee. Galilee was ethnically mixed with Jews, Greeks and others living together. The overall level of education was somewhat lower in Galilee. Christ frequently spoke to simple, uneducated people. For this reason, Christ did not give long, theological discourses, buthe usessimple language, capable of being understood by the uneducated but with profound meaning for all. Much of St. John’s Gospel is set in Judea, often in Jerusalem. Judea was more solidly Jewish with many highly educated Jewish leaders. Also, in much of the Fourth Gospel Christ is giving directions to the apostles who were able to understand Jesus in a more sophisticated way.

But there is something else to take into consideration. By the time St. John wrote his Gospel he had spent close to sixty years meditating on Christ’s words and deeds, preaching these words and deeds before various audiences. AndsoChrist’s words became intermixed with St. John’s words. Sometimes we don’t know where Christ’s words end and St. John’s words begin. This should not surprise us. For example, priests preach about the Gospel frequently. They quote Christ’s words and sometimes paraphrase or summarize Christ’s words in various contexts. Hopefully priests are not contradicting or ignoring Christ’s words, but rather preachingthem invarious situations.

There is yet one other thing wehave totake into account. St. John may not haveliterally put pen to paper in the writing of this Gospel. It is very possible that St. John’s words were written by one or many of his disciples. In many icons of St. John, we see him speaking and his discipleProchoruswriting things down. Modern scholars propose that there was a school of St. John’s disciples for putting his words on paper.

We are tempted to think that many of Christ’s words were distorted through this process. But, we are thinking in a modern manner. Scholars have shown that in our modern situations, with words available in print or through electronic media, our ability to memorize things has slowed down. However, in pre-literate cultures where much transmission of knowledge was verbal, memory as more fully developed. Studies have shown that story tellers in non-literate cultures can memorize and repeat very long stories, histories, plays and so on. Furthermore, in Judaism in the early centuries, disciples of a rabbi were required to memorize and accurately repeat the rabbi’s teachings. Jesus’ disciples, although they did not have much formal education, probably could accurately repeat long narratives of Christ’s words and deeds.

Finally, for Orthodox we do not need to be overly concerned about detailed questions about authority or dating of the Bible. The Bible is the book of the Church, which witnesses to the truth of the Bible. Details may vary, but the Bible is God’s word for humanity.

St. John’s Gospel is the last Gospel to be written, towards the end of the 1stcentury. It was written to bring out the deeper theological meaning of Jesus’ words and deeds. It is the result of many years of thinking and preaching. The fourth Gospel has the clearest statement of Christ’s divinity, that is:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (Jn 1:1)

This section tells about the Word of God and tells us that Jesus Christ is the Word of God and so is God. John 20:26-28 is the clearest confession of Christ’s divinity in the New Testament.

Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

Because of the theological profundity of this Gospel, St. John is called “The Theologian”, one of the only saints with this title. The other two are St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Simeon the New Theologian.

St. John is given this title because of the theological depths of his Gospel. For example, the Prologue in chapter 1 of the Gospel says this:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.(Jn 1:1-5)

Here, speaking of Jesus Christ, he calls him “the Word”. God’s word in the Old Testament was very important. For example, in Psalm 33 it says:By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.: (Ps 33:6)In other words, God created thorough His Word. Or in Psalm 119:49-50:

“Remember thy word to thy servant, in which thou hast made me hope. his is my comfort in my affliction that thy promise gives me life.”

Ingeneralin the Old Testament the Word of God is almost a kind of mediator between God and man.

On the other hand, the concept of “word” is very important. The English word “word” is the translation of the Greek word Logos. Logos can simply mean “word” in the common meaning, but in Greek philosophy it is more than that. “Logos” can mean reason, order, principle and many other things. In Greek thought the word is also seen asa kindof mediator between God and man. St. John, by bringing the Hebrew and Greek meaning of Logos together has created a profound unity between Greek philosophical concepts and Biblical revelation. He shows these two meanings come together in Christ who is “Logos” in the Greek and the Hebrew sense. He is giving a profound basis for further theology.

One thing that differentiates the Fourth Gospel from the other three is that in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Christ speaks in short, pithy sayings such as “love your neighbor”, “turn the other cheek” and so on. He also speaks in parables such as the “Good Samaritan” and “the Prodigal Son”.

But we see very little of this in St. John’s Gospel. In this Gospel Christ delivers long theological speeches. Because of this some critics say that St. John’s Gospel is not historically accurate. However, there are some things to consider. In the first three (synoptic) Gospels,Christ is preaching for the most part, in Galilee. Galilee was ethnically mixed with Jews, Greeks and others living together. The overall level of education was somewhat lower in Galilee. Christ frequently spoke to simple, uneducated people. For this reason, Christ did not give long, theological discourses, but in simple language, capable of being understood by the uneducated but with profound meaning for all. Much of St. John’s Gospel is set in Judea, often in Jerusalem. Judea was more solidly Jewish with many highly educated Jewish leaders. Also, in much of the Fourth Gospel Christ is giving directions to the apostles who were able to understand Jesus in a more sophisticated way.

But there is something else to take into consideration. By the time St. John wrote his Gospel he had spent close to sixty years meditating on Christ’s words and deeds, preaching these words and deeds before various audiences. AndsoChrist’s words became intermixed with St. John’s words. Sometimes we don’t know where Christ’s words end and St. John’s words begin. This should not surprise us. For example, priests preach about the Gospel frequently. They quote Christ’s words and sometimes paraphrase or summarize Christ’s words in various contexts. Hopefully priests are not contradicting or ignoring Christ’s words, but rather preaching in various situations.

There is yet one other thing we have to take into account. St. John may not literally put pen to paper in the writing of this Gospel. It is very possible that St. John’s words were written by one or many of his disciples. In many icons of St. John, we see him speaking and his discipleProchoruswriting things down. Modern scholars propose that there was a school of St. John’s disciples for putting his words on paper.

We aretempedto think that many of Christ’s words were distorted through this process. But, we ae thinking in a modern manner. Scholars have shown that in our modern situations, with words available in print or through electronic media, our ability to memorize things has slowed down. However, in pre-literate cultures where much transmission of knowledge was verbal, memory as more fully developed. Studies have shown that story tellers in non-literate cultures can memorize and repeat very long stories, histories, plays and so on. Fut5hermore, in Judaism in the early centuries, disciples of a rabbi were required to memorize and accurately repeat the rabbi’s teachings. Jesus’ disciples, although they did not have much formal education, probably cold accurately repeat long narratives of Christ’s words and deeds.

Finally, for Orthodox we do not need to be overly concerned about detailed questions about authority or dating of the Bible. The Bible is the book of the Church, which guarantees the truth of the Bible. Details may vary, but the Bible is God’s word for humanity.

St. Luke was the only non-Jew among the Gospel writers. He was an educated man, a doctor, who wrote very good Greek. Because St. Luke was a doctor, some scholars think that his vocabulary appeared to use several medical terms, although many disagree. He was also a companion of St. Paul on some of his preaching tours. St. Luke was also the author of the Book of Acts, which describes the history of the early church from Christ’s Ascension to St. Paul’s journey to Rome.

At the opening of his Gospel, St. Luke writes that he collected information from nay people who had known Jesus. His Gospel is dedicated to “Theophilus”. No one knows who Theophilus was. It was a Greek name and so some say St. Luke wrote his Gospel and Book of Acts for a non-Jewish Christian. However, in Greek ‘Theophilus’ means ‘lover of God’ so St. Luke may have used this name to indicate that his Gospel was writtenfor all Christians, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellentTheoph’ilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. (Lk 1:1-4)

Sohe really makes the effort to learn as much about Jesus as he could. His Gospel provides a lot of information about the birth of St. John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. Because St. Luke gives so much information about the births of St. John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, St. Luke probably knew the Mother of God who gave him the details. In addition, the long genealogical list of ancestors by St. Matthew and St. Luke differs in several details so St. Matthew’s genealogy is from St. Joseph and St. Luke’s from theTheotokos. In any case, both genealogies show Jesus descent from King David. This is important because the OldTestament tells us that the Messiah was to be a descendant of King David. The fact that St. Luke’s genealogy is from Mary’s point of view shows that St. Luke was acquainted with the Mother of God.

St. Luke is reputed to have painted the first icon of the Mother of God. It would be difficult to prove this from history; it is said the “Vladimir” icon of theTheotokoswas painted by St. Luke.

Also, at the end of his Gospel St. Luke related the following story:

That very day two of them were going to a village namedEmma’us, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, namedCle’opas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” (Lk 13-18)

People believe this because although the name Cleopas is mentioned, the name of the other is not mentioned so this may be St. Luke referring to himself. As mentioned above, St. Luke was a companion of St. Paul. In fact, several sections of the Book of Acts are simply taken from his travel diary. Several parts of the Book of Acts give the details of their sailing to Rome. For example:

“… embarking in a ship ofAdramyt’tium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied byAristar’chus, aMacedo’nianfromThessaloni’ca. The next day we put in at Sidon; and Julius treated Paul kindly, and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for. And putting to sea from there we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. And when we had sailed across the sea which is offCili’ciaandPamphyl’ia, we came to Myra inLy’cia. There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy, and put us on board. We sailed slowly fora number ofdays, and arrived with difficulty offCni’dus, and as the wind did not allow us to go on, we sailed under the lee of Crete offSalmo’ne. Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city ofLase’a.” (Acts 27:2-8)

Early in the 20thcentury an English sailor followed St. Luke’s directions and decided that the details are quite accurate and a modern sailor could follow them.

Generally, we can say that St. Matthew’s Gospel was directed towards Jews. St. Luke’s Gospel was directed towards non-Jews. This Gospel has a universalistic quality.

The Gospel according to St. Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels. Traditionally, it was believed that St. Matthew wrote first and St. Mark shortened his Gospel, but many scholars today think that St. Mark wrote first. Scholars will continue to study this issue, but such questions do not affect the value of the Gospel.

Traditionally, St. Mark is believed to be St. Peter’s interpreter. St. Peter was a Galilean fisherman and probably he had little or no education, so he would not have had the opportunity to study Greek or Latin. At this time the Jews spoke Aramaic. However, St. Peter was from Galilee. Galilee was more diverse than Judea so there were many non-Jews and these people would have spoken Greek or Latin. People tend to think that people in the Roman Empire spoke Latin. Of course, there were many, many Latin speakers. However, the Roman Empire was quite ethnically diverse. Therefore, most people across the Empire spoke Greek. This was true even inside Rome. The point is this – St. Peter probably spoke at least some Greek or Latin, because of course, as a fisherman he would have to had to speak to non-Jewish customers. However, St. Peter was probably not fluent in Greek or Latin and so St. Mark acted as his interpreter when St. Peter had difficulty expressing himself in Greek or Latin. Because of this, St. Mark knew St. Peter’s preaching very well, and when he came to write his Gospel, he based it on St. Peter’s preaching. Some of the Fathers thought that this Gospel as written in Rome to strengthen the Christian community there when they were being persecuted by Emperor Nero in 64AD. Other Fathers taught that it was written about the year 70, when the Jewish war was being fought. The destruction of Jerusalem during this war made many Christians think that it signaled the end of the world. In either case, St. Mark wrote this Gospel to support the Roman Christians during these horrible events.

Another characteristic in St. Mark’s Gospel is what is called by scholars as the “Messianic Secret”. This theory claims that St. Mark did not say directly that Jesus was the Messiah. Of course, Jesus’ teaching and miracles showed that he was the Messiah. Jesus did not openly claim to be the Messiah, and asked disciples to avoid mentioning this. This was because the popular view of the Messiah was that of a political or even military leader who would end Roman occupation of the Holy Land and establish a Jewish kingdom. Jesus Christ was not this kind of Messiah. It even took a while for the disciples to understand this. It was only after the crucifixion and resurrection that the disciples fully realized what kind of Messiah Jesus was and that He was “true God of true God”, as the Creed says.

It is traditionally thought that the Last Supper took place in the house of St. Mark’s mother. Also, St. Mark is thought to be the young man who fled after Jesus’ arose from the dead.

And a young man followed him, with nothing but a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked. (Mk 14:51-52)

St. Mark’s Gospel is written ‘on the run’ so to speak. St. Mark did not write long, elegant sentences. For example, rather than write in long, complete sentences he will say things many times as if he is quoting St. Peter’s preaching style, which didn’t use literary elegance. Also, he frequently uses the word “immediately”, “at once”, indicating preaching on the run.

As we can see from the Acts of the Apostles, St. (John) Mark accompanied St. Paul and Barnabas on the missionary journey. However, for some reason chose to leave St. Paul and Barnabas mid-journey:

“Now Paul and his company set sail from Paphos, and came to Perga in Pamphyl’ia. And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.” (Acts 13:13)

This angered St. Paul so much that he did not let St. Mark rejoin them.

“And Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphyl’ia, and had not gone with them to the work.” (Acts 15:37-38)

But St. Paul and St. Mark eventually reconciled. We can see this from the final greeting at the end of St. Paul’s letter to Philemon.